Saturday, 25 July 2015

My Weekly Recap: YALC Edition

The last week has been very hectic because I spent three days attending YALC, which was crazy and wonderful, and totally wiped out my bank balance!!! YALC is the UKs first Young Adult Literary Convention and it is amazing and I will be sure to attend every year they do it. It's filled with amazing panels, great workshops and more authors than I can name, who all signed their books whilst there.

I attended all three days. Friday is where I had to bring the most books with me, then ended up buying the most books whilst there. Getting it all home was hard as hell and I really struggled. I attended some great panels that day and had my books signed by some of my favourite authors. You can read my recap of that day here/

Saturday didn't go as well because I was so exhausted after the day before. I lasted about 2 hours and then decided to go home. I did pick up all the Harry Potter POP! Vinyls though, so it was worth it. I then went home and got some much needed sleep, as I had to be up again at 5am the following day. Sunday was much more successful, as I had finally got a decent nights sleep. I went to two workshops, which I will do individual posts on. I went to a few of the panels, and then I managed to get all the books signed that I had planned to. A SUCCESSFUL DAY!!!

Then I had only two days to recover from my YALC filled weekend until it was time to return to work. It was not fun! I work in a college library now and it is far too quiet right now as it's the summer holidays, and I will be working by my own. I might end up going a little bit crazy, which is worrying. I hope to get some reading done starting from next week, right now I am piled under with trying to write up posts, be a social human being for once (doesn't go well for me!) and see family.

I might have gone a little OTT when it came to buying the POP! vinyls. But I had to have all the Harry Potter ones, just got to wait for Hagrid to become available. And how could I not get the Supernatural ones? HOW!?! Also, I have mad love for you if you know what the bottle caps are from!

I have just counted and realised that over three days I bought 40 books, then got 12 free ones. Ooops! Technically the doubles were my friends, but he took a bunch and then read the backs and changed his mind and only kept a few. I'm going to do a giveaway for the others at some point.

I had to buy the wonderfully beautiful hardback copies of the Hogwarts library collection, and I LOVE them. The Dead House and Crow Mountain were two I bought so I could get them signed whilst I was there.

I bought all the Holly Bourne books whilst I was there as I wanted to get them signed. I almost didn't buy Soulmates because I wasn't sure if I would enjoy it, but I was talking to someone about it and they sold me on it, so I wanted to try it. Darkmere sounds so interesting, plus the author was there signing copies so I decided to buy one.

I don't know why I insist on buying all the books in a series at once, but I can'y seem to stop myself. I got all three for £10 though, so it was hard to say know. Seed has such a stunning cover and an interesting premise, very excited to try that one.

Not sure if I like the new Princess Diaries covers that they have released, but I want to try this series. Everyone has been talking about it since the latest release, so I am curious and kind of want to try it and see what I think. End of Days I got so that I might actually finally start that series, now I have no excuse seeing as I own all the books.

Look at me, buying all the books in a series even though I haven't read book one! I am hoping that buying the whole Daughter of Smoke and Bone series will make me actually start and finish that series, but we shall see. When I Was Me is a Hot Key Books release that I was so excited for, was very happy they were selling it early at YALC.

Some more Hot Key books to add to my ever growing collection. I already had copies of We Were Liars and How To Be Bad, but these ones came signed. So keep an eye out for a UK giveaway of my extra copies of those.

I was so happy to see they were giving away copies of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of the many classics I have still never read, but really want to. I love the look of Stone Rider and can't wait to try that. The Dolls is one I am hoping I enjoy. I will be giving away a copy of Night Owls, Stone Rider and The Dolls soon, as I have extras of all of those.

That will be up to £40 worth of books of the winners choice from Book Depository. They ship internationally which means that it can be open to all of my wonderful followers.

If you want to do the 1989 tag then it will get you 10 entries on the post, just add your link underneath and link back to here. Feel free to do as many or as few questions as you want, there are quite a few questions to choose from!

I second Chrissi ^^ GORGEOUS design. :) And gawsh, speaking of GORGEOUS, look at that beautiful haul!!! I especially loved The Hero of Room 13B. The characters were wonderful and I just loved the way it was written. Also--thanks for the giveaway!

Oh wow, so many gorgeous books! Those Harry Potter Pop Vinyls are awesome! Sounds like you had a fab time at YALC. I'd love to go at some stage in the future, it wouldn't be too hard or expensive to get to from Dublin :) I'd be so tempted to get every book I set my eyes on! The only bad part would be when the excess baggage charges on Ryanair hit. That wouldn't be fun! Hope you have a fab week, Charnell! Alma @ Journey Through Fiction

Pffft your hauls never cease to blow me away! I haven't heard of the majority of those at all! I have got a copy of Dangerous Lies as well and I am so eager to finally try a book by Fitzpatrick because I really didn't want to read Hush, Hush in fear of it being too like Twilight. I also read To Kill a Mockingbird but it wasn't so brilliant in my opinion. I hope you love them all x

SO MANY PRETTIFUL BOOKS. AFDJKSALFD And I spied Skulduggery Pleasant on your shelves there!! (Have you read them?! They are sooo gooooood. XD) And The Hero of 13B is like one of my favouritest books this year. It's kind of unconventional and adorable and I melted, basically, as well as cried a bit. SO YEAH. Also just congrats and hauling all these books around. No one can say being a bookworm is for the weak, amirite!?

YALC sounds incredibly amazing! I'm glad to see that you had fun. :) I've yet to make it to a book convention, but hopefully I'll go one day! We Were Liars is one of my favorite books! I hope you have an awesome week. :)Krystianna @ Downright Dystopian

Have I told you already that your blog design is gorgeous? Because if not, major fail on my part. SO GLAD that you had an amazing time at YALC. And YAY for ALL OF THE FUNKOS! Because seriously, why not?

Also, looking at your book haul is making me want to hop on a plane and head to Waterstone's. I need UK covers, darn it!

I've got a habit of buying the books in a series before I read book one...I seem to think the books will suddenly disappear overnight if I don't get them all, which is stupid! Enjoy that huge book haul!

So many books I don't even know where to start! They all look so pretty. And those Pop! Vinyls are awesome. I've seen them around and have been wanting a few but have no idea where to put them. Have a great week and enjoy all your new goodies!

I NEED all the HP POP Figures like yesterday. I want to buy them in store but I'm not sure of one around me. So I'll probably just get them online. I'd like to think I'd control myself and just by one at a time. But that's not realistic. I'll buy them all. HOW CAN I NOT?I LOVE the Graceling trilogy! It's soooooo good. It's been years since I read it. I needs to re-read it this year. Happy reading!Brittany @ This is the Story of My(Reading) Life

Squeeee! So many books! I'm actually moving to England next week from South Africa and I wish I could've attended YALC - it looks like so much fun! I really want to read The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B, it looks so good. I read To Kill a Mockingbird last week and I LOVED IT SO FREAKING MUCH. Read it. Now. Seriously, it's SO good!

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